Moon Dancer

Another solid release from terarin. The game is fun. The game in terms of mechanics has a minimalistic aproach. you have the directional inputs and a button. It may sound too basic even for retro game lovers but it works has the mechanics are elegant and the button has two functions that work pretty well. First functions is a multishoot (forward and diagonbals), second function is a lock on system like rayforce. there are weapon pickups for the lock on system and powerup pickups that increase the power of your shots(bot normal shoot and lockon). the lock on range depends on pick up. it may have a form of a small circular area around you ship or a square in front of your ship with sligtly more range. On rayforce you had a 2 level dimensional areas for the enemyes (one for normal shoot, other for lockon). In moon dancer you only have 1 area for both shoots. At first glance and by this description you will ask why you have the need of lock on system since a normal shoot has more range and always hits the enemy and here lays the elegant design that i spoke in the beggining of the review and i am going to explain now. to avoid this problem the designer made the elegant choice to have the normal shoot weak and the lock on shoot powerful. In fact normal shoot on is almost useless in bosses and stronger enemyes as it will take a long time to kill them. It is only useful on popcorn enemyes as you will be almost forced to use lock on. That game mechanic also increases the risk of attacking enemyes, as you will have to attack at close range often. In that sense is a shmup that relies a bit on memorization. To reward this risk you have a score system that will give points and cristal if you do multiple combo shoots with the lock on system. crystal will give you score at the end of the stage.The difficulty is low, but don´t expect the lower difficulty of other terarin games. The fact that you have to kill enemyes at close tange and you have to restart a area (fortunaly not a level) when you die increases the difficulty a lot compared to other terarin releases altough is still accessible game, don´t expect to 1cc so easily. The graphics may look primitive but they work well, because they are well animated and have a excelent bullet visibility (a trademark from terarin). i whished more games used this style. The music is good. The price is a bit high compared to other ofers in the market but ok. since it has quality. I reccomend with a slight discount. Sometimes less is more and that is the case with terarin games. They are easy, they don´t have nothing mindblowing (but always good),but they have a fun, cohesive and unique aprroach to retro shmups without the problems of that era (big hitboxes, gradius syndrome, no autofire, etc). I strongly recomend this game.

Terarin is the man

They shoulda called it Star Force or Ray Soldier or something

A small but endearing homage to the RayForce system. I like the chaining system during boss fights, but the level design could be more involved.

My favourite release by Terarin so far , but all his releases combine that retro ethic and prersentation with absurdly fun play. The guy knows the genre inside out and knows what he wants to create-fun,addictive, fast paced shooters that keep u coming back for more. At time of writing his game Gemini Arms is on sale on Steam and is well worth a purchase,as is the well known Raging Blasters. One of my favourite doujin develepors at the moment.

Sim, esse game é uma ''carta de amor'' para os amantes de Shmup, jogo que lembra bastante ''Layer Section'' de Sega saturn, pelo fato de mirar e soltar concentrados nos inimigos, fora a ótima jogabilidade e fase final estonteante!!! recomendadíssimo, vc sempre o achará em ótimas promoções.